The black soldier fly, also known as Hermertia illucens L., is a dipterous, saprophytic insect that can be used to decompose a variety of organic wastes and scraps. It is also an edible or feeding insect recommended by the United Nations. In the wild, black soldier flies live in tropical and subtropical areas. Their prepupae prefer to pupate at sites that are dry, shady and close to water sources. After emergence, they usually mate on sunny mornings and lay eggs in dry gaps close to food sources.
As a kind of economic insect, the captive breeding of black soldier flies have been continuously explored in order to achieve large-scale breeding. Initially, people merely used insect cages for the captive breeding of black soldier flies. Although insect cages provide relatively independent spaces for the mating and oviposition of black soldier flies, space limitations are too great for large-scale breeding. For this reason, a kind of breeding greenhouse for adult black soldier flies, which mimics a greenhouse for vegetables, has been developed. Although these breeding greenhouses adult soldier flies offer improvements in terms of space, they have the following problems:
1. Plants, which are placed on the floor, are employed to increase the surface area for attachments of adult black soldier flies. This causes difficulties in the cleaning and maintenance of the breeding greenhouses. Furthermore, many eggs of the black soldier flies are directly laid on the plants, causing difficulties in egg collection.
2. Due to problems in building materials and structural design, the inside of these breeding greenhouses tend to have problems such as excessively high temperature, poor ventilation, and difficulties in light intensity control. These problems have serious impacts on the survival and breeding of black soldier flies.
3. Adult black soldier flies tend to lay eggs in various locations, and many eggs are directly laid on pupae shells of black soldier flies or on the floor, and the egg collection rate is low. Therefore, it is still difficult to achieve large-scale breeding of black soldier flies.